Choices
by Chainlinks
Summary: AU, JR slash Jack has Ralph at spearpoint and gives him a choice.


Author's Note: AU. This stays with the storyline until the middle-end of chapter eleven, about page 181 if you have the book handy. Piggy is dead, Samneric are captured and Jack has just declared himself chief. In the book, he throws his spear at Ralph. For this AU, however, he has the point of his spear at Ralph's throat.  
  
Warnings: Slash, Jack/Ralph. Mild violence.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters, settings or objects from Lord of the Flies.  
  
Choices  
  
  
  
"Trophey, possesion, pet..." Jack mused, keeping his spearpoint resting on Ralph's neck. "What do you want to be, Ralph?"  
  
Ralph's eyes brimmed with glistening tears of hatred, but they were meaningless enough to be blinked away without the humiliation of crying. He turned his head away from Jack.  
  
"Go on, answer!" Jack prodded Ralph sharply, gleefully. "I want to hear what you think." He turned to the hushed crows of savages around him, studying their painted expressions. Glee, malice, jeering from most. Pure fear from the twins, whose faces were identical pictures of terror. And dead Piggy's face, but that was out of sight, out of mind. Piggy's face didn't matter, never had mattered, never again would matter.  
  
"I don't want any of it, Jack. You know that," Ralph said, not pleading, not calm, somewhere between.  
  
"Right. We know what you want," Jack sneered. He pitched his voice ridiculously high in a mockery of Ralph. "We have to keep the fire going! I don't care about the hunt! We have to have smoke so we can be rescued!"  
  
Shock and hurt flitted across Ralph's face. "I thought that's what we all wanted! We all want to be rescued!"  
  
"Rescued," Jack laughed. "We won't be rescued. Maybe we don't even want to be rescued anymore!"  
  
A faint murmur went through the watching crowd. Ralph wasn't sure if it was one of agreement or protest, but he spoke again anyway: "We have to be rescued or we'll die here!"  
  
"We'd die eventually no matter where we went," Jack reminded him, bringing a few laughs. "Or do you think that you're immortal?" Jack gave another sharp, biting laugh, turning to the barbaric young boys. "Did you hear that? Ralph thinks he'll live forever! He can't die!"  
  
More jeering laughter surrounded Ralph. "That's not what I meant!" the blonde protested futilely.  
  
Jack gave him an odd smile. "Isn't it? You think you'll live forever if we go back to civilization? Even if you died, you'd live forever. Through some book, through some work. People would remember you forever, and that's the same as living. Here, though, you're scared that you'll be forgotten."  
  
"No!" Ralph cried, but he wasn't sure what exactly he was protesting.  
  
"What you need to understand is that here, there aren't any rules yet. We make all the rules. We decide when we eat, when we sleep, when we hunt. There aren't any set rules like out there." Here, Jack gestured vaguely in the direction of the sea. "For all we know, we make the rules about death. We can make a rule about not dying."  
  
"People have died here already! People who would have lived! That littlun in the fire, Simon, Piggy... They would have lived if we hadn't been on this damned island."  
  
"We can do anything we want," Jack continued, completely ignoring Ralph's last statements.  
  
"If we can do anything we want, how come you're holding me at the point of your spear?" Ralph demanded.  
  
"You don't count anymore. You're a failure." Jack jabbed his spear at Ralph's chest for emphasis, leaving a long, shallow scrape. "You are nothing."  
  
As was prone to happen at the worst possible times, a curtain fell over Ralph's mind and he was left at a total loss for what to say. "Stop that!" he said finally, pushing Jack's spear away from him.  
  
Jack easily flipped his spear around so that the blunter end was facing Ralph, then pushed hard, shoving Ralph backwards so he laid on his back. Jack stepped heavily onto Ralph's chest before the fair-haired boy had time to pull himself back up. "I don't have to stop if I don't want to," he said cooly. He turned to face the watchful other boys. "Roger," he snapped, and Jack's second-in-command appeared at his side instantly, holding a tangle of thick, rope-like creepers.  
  
Jack rolled his captive over to his stomach. Taking the hint, Roger bound Ralph's hands roughly behind his back. Jack surveyed the knots, then said, "Come on, Roger, we're going to make a dungeon."  
  
Roger hauled Ralph to his feet where Ralph stumbled, his legs not willing to hold him. Jack laughed, then turned to his tribe in the way an actor would turn to his audience. "I can't believe you lot voted him leader the first time," he snickered. "He can't even walk right!"  
  
Through a joint effort, Jack and Roger hauled Ralph to one of the deep pits formed by broken rocks. Roger shoved Ralph in and Jack jumped in lightly after him. "Arrange to post a guard to make sure the prisoner doesn't escape," Jack told Roger, a note of triumph in his voice, "and get me a rope to climb back up."  
  
Roger disappeared from view, leaving Jack and Ralph alone. Jack eyed Ralph predatorilly. "You never answered my question," Jack said in a disturbingly conversational tone.  
  
"What question?" Ralph demanded, desperately trying to orient himself, tenderly brushing dirt from the cuts on his shoulder and chest.  
  
"Trophey, posession or pet?" Jack asked.  
  
Ralph avoided Jack's gaze. "I answered. I don't want any of those choices."  
  
Jack smiled lazily. "You just want to make this harder on me, don't you? What other options could you want? Slave? Is that what you really want? To be my slave?"  
  
Ralph shook his head fervrently "No! I don't want to be yours at all!"  
  
"Too late," Jack replied. "You already are mine; that part's for certain. They only thing left to decide is what you are. I think I'm being generous to let you choose." Jack's smile was a warning. "I could choose myself."  
  
What would Jack choose? The thought came unbidden to Ralph's mind. Undoubtedly Jack would choose what he perceived as the worst possible choice. But what was the worst possible choice? A trophey, symbolic of defeat? Or a posession, with no free will? Or a pet, with no will but to please? Or a slave, with will but no choice?  
  
"I'm getting impatient. Answer already!" Jack said sourly.  
  
Ralph's mind worked at double speed. What game was Jack playing? There had to be a way out, some pattern to anchor on to, something logical for him to grasp onto like a rope to pull him out of this pit. Before he could stop them, the words came tumbling from Ralph's mouth: "What do you want me to be?"  
  
A savage grin broke across Jack's face. He'd been prepared to take the choice from Ralph if the other boy didn't hurry and give an answer, but to have the choice laid before him willingly was nothing short of a treasure. Jack leaned closer to Ralph "Do you really want to know?"  
  
"No," Ralph answered.  
  
"All four," Jack said, as if he hadn't heard Ralph. "I want you to be a trophey so you can never forget that you lost. A posession so you never forget who you belong to. A pet so you never forget to please me. A slave so you never forget to hope."  
  
"And because you know that's what will make me most miserable," Ralph added.  
  
"Of course, but that's a given," Jack agreed in an off-hand way.  
  
"You can't make me be one of those things for you," Ralph told Jack defiantly. "You can't!"  
  
"I have control over you. I control whether you get to ear, drink, or breathe. I can make you do whatever I want." He gave Ralph an appraising look that caused a jerking tremor to cascade down Ralph's spine. "But I was wrong. Being all four wouldn't be the worst, would it? You'd lose yourself in that kind of warped balance. I want you to be my --"  
  
"I've chosen," Ralph inserted hurriedly. "I'll be your captive. I'll be your prisoner. That's it. That's all I'm willing to give."  
  
Jack laughed. "That's not what you want. Roger tortures captives, then I kill them. You don't don't want that. I don't want that. I want you to become my --"  
  
"I don't want to become your trophey!" Ralph yelled, sure that he knew what Jack was about to say. He didn't want to be a reminder of Jack's painful victory, the very thing he wanted to forget.  
  
"Empress," Jack finished with a wide grin. "I don't want a trophey anymore. Tropheys are for boring British boys who have so few wins that they need to be reminded that they have any at all."  
  
"Empress?" Ralph echoed incredulously. "Is that really what you just said? Empress?"  
  
"It's the worst job for you!" Jack said triumphantly. "You'd hate it! To be so close to the power, but completely unable to affect it."  
  
"Empress?" Ralph pressed doubtfully. "You're off your rocker, aren't you?"  
  
"And," continued Jack, "it would make me an emperor -- better than a chief!"  
  
"How would it make you an emperor?" Ralph demanded.  
  
"Because I said so," Jack replied, apparantly without good reason.  
  
"Emperors and empresses have to be married," Ralph interjected with the air of one who has had to sit in on too many history classes.  
  
"We'll be married, then. It doesn't matter."  
  
"But we're both boys! And I don't like you!"  
  
Jack let out a gusty sigh. "We're all boys on this island. If any of us get married, it would have to be to a boy, wouldn't it?"  
  
"I don't like you!" Ralph repeated desperately. "I think I even hate you!"  
  
"You have to change that to be my empress," Jack pointed out evenly. "You'd have to love me. Everyone would have to love me."  
  
"No!"  
  
"I'm not giving you any food until you say you love me and you'll be my empress."  
  
Ralph considered ehis options and found three: A, he could starve to death and die a martyr. B, he could try to starve to death, fail, and look like an idiot and be humiliated when he finally gave in. C, he could keep both dignity and pride intact and lie and tell Jack that he loved him but not mean it.  
  
"Fine. I love you, and I'd like to be your empress," Ralph said with a glare that defied his words.  
  
"Not good enough."  
  
Ralph tried again, putting all the acting ability he'd ever lied to his mother with. "I love you, Jack, and I'd be honored to be your empress," he said, voice dripping with sincerity. He closed his eyes, then, as if it had taken all his strength to say that. Inwardly, he attempted to clean his soul with mental curses and denials.  
  
When he opened his eyes, returning to reality, there was an odd sort of pressure on his lips that he'd never felt before and Jack's mocking eyes stared not an inch from his own.  
  
'I'm being kissed,' Ralph realized. He decided it was more boring than he'd imagined. Two people, just standing there touching mouths -- what was so exciting about it? A let down, really. That's when Jack opened his mouth, his tongue snaking out to taste Ralph. Ralph immedietly clamped his mouth tightly, refusing to let any part of Jack inside him inside him in such an intimate way.  
  
Jack pulled away angrily. "Open your mouth!" he insisted. "We have to do this properly."  
  
Ralph felt sick. He didn't want to kiss Jack properly, but Jack was going to make him open his mouth no matter what. "I don't want to."  
  
Jack didn't pay attention, a bad habit that he'd developed that bothered Ralph to no end. Instead, Jack yanked Ralph close again took advantage of Ralph's already partly-open mouth to deepen the kiss. Ralph let out a soft sound of shock/confusion/anger/pleasure that seemed to amuse Jack to no end.  
  
"I like you. You're an alright kisser and I'll teach you to be better." Jack said when the kiss was over.  
  
"I've got the rope!" Roger called from above. With a jaunty goodbye wave to his empress-to-be, Jack climbed up the rope offered to him.  
  
Once the sounds of Jack and Roger faded away, Ralph touched his lips with an odd look on his face. "Jack was wrong," he told the filthy rocks around him. "Because if he kisses me again, I won't hate being his empress at all."  
  
Author's Note: Comments and criticism are hugely appreciated! 


End file.
